Hall of Fame: Amiga 500, the computer that showed consoles how it's done

[orb85750]

Bah, if it was 16-bit it wouldn't have had the neat crunchy sound it did. There's a reason people still swear by the old 12-bit samplers; sometimes you want that color to your sound.

Who swears by 12-bit samplers, and which old ones in particular?

[orb85750]

A bunch of people, especially in sampler-heavy genres of music (it's not my thing, but I understand Wu-Tang Clan's 36 Chambers was made entirely with an Ensoniq EPS - though that was 13-bit, but still.) EPS, E-mu Emax, etc. Low sampling resolution gives any sound a certain grit and character that a lot of people just like. 16-bit is fine for high-fidelity audio reproduction, but in an instrument (as opposed to a playback mechanism) you don't usually want the highest possible precision and lack of tone coloration. Nobody complains because a violin doesn't produce a perfect sawtooth wave.

I think Ensoniq and EMU are known for their excellent filters, which make any samples sound better.  I don't believe that raw 12-bit would be preferred, although it's still pretty decent.